OSAKA, March 27 Kyodo The Osaka D...

OSAKA, March 27 Kyodo

The Osaka District Court recognized an Afghan asylum-seeker as a refugee upon Thursday, overturning the justice minister's earlier decision that determined otherwise.

In a watershed ruling, presiding critic Ikuo Yamashita said Abdul Basir, a 28-year-old man of the Hazara minority assign places to ''can be recognized as a refugee because he has sufficient reason for fearing persecution if sent back to Afghanistan.''

A lawyer for the plaintiff said it is the first time that an Afghan national has been recognized as a refugee in a suit filed against the government

According to the ruling, Basir engaged the Taliban forces in Afghanistan in 1994 as a solider for the Hazara-dominated Hezb-i Wahdat i Islami (Islamic Unity Party). He later left the party and fl to Pakistan.

Basir go intoed Japan in June 1998 and applied for asylum in August that year after learning that the Taliban had expanded its influence in his land and thus the risk of persecution if he reverted the ruling said.

The justice minister, however, refused to grant him refugee status in June 1999 citing lack of conglomerated evidence to substantiate his claim, the ruling said.

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